USVI Soccer Team Photo Credit: USVI SOCCER ASSOCIATION
The Virgin Islands will play Montserrat today in the Dominican Republic and El Salvador on Saturday on St. Croix in its final two, first-round Group A CONCACAF World Cup Qualifiers. The USVI team will most likely need to win both matches and have the right combination of results in the other Group A games to advance to the next round of qualification.
The team is in a tough position for qualification after losing its first two matches of the qualifying campaign to Antigua and Barbuda 3-0 and Grenada 1-0.
Going into the final two matches, the Virgin Islands sits at the bottom of the Group A table. El Salvador and Antigua and Barbuda are tied for first place with 4 points each; Grenada is in third with 3 points, and Montserrat is in fourth place with two points. Teams receive three points for a win and one point for a draw in the standings.
The Montserrat v. USVI game will take place at 5:00 p.m.
On Friday, Antigua and Barbuda will play Grenada, and on June 8th Antigua and Barbuda will play El Salvador, while Grenada will play Montserrat in the final games of Group A.
Only the team in first place of each group will advance to the next round of qualifying. The winning team of Group A will play the winner of Group F in a two-legged series with the winner advancing to the final round of regional qualifying.
The Virgin Islands comes into this window of games ranked 207th in the world, while El Salvador is ranked 69th; Antigua and Barbuda 128th; Grenada 160th and Montserrat 180th.
The match on St. Croix Saturday will start at 7:00 p.m. and is limited to vaccinated individuals only. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased here.
The team participated in a 9-day training camp beginning on May 23 in the Dominican Republic to get ready for these games.
The 23-man roster for the USVI's Montserrat and El Salvador games includes:
- GOALKEEPERS - Lionel Brown, Whelan Joseph, Dylan Ramos
- DEFENDERS –Axel Bartsch, Dusty Good, Jacob Iller, Mahari Cortijo, John Engerman, Joshua Ramos, Kassall Greene, Karson Kendall, Jacob Borden, Zahmyre Harris
- MIDFIELDERS - Grant Farrell, MacDonald Taylor, Jimson St. Louis, William Shaffer, Timothy Herring
- FORWARDS - Arthbert William, Julius Brown, Ramesses Mcguiness, Rakeem Joseph, Asanti Herring
